"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It's a little too early for daddy's liking when we wake up - but we both know that very well.
"Remmy!" I whisper-shout across the small space we've been left in, curled up beneath the Loessian long grasses for until morning comes. It's a couple hours before that incidentally, but I can just see the beginning of the sunrise in one corner of the sky, and that's enough proof for me. A obnoxiously loud snort startles some birds from the nearby bushes when I see no movement from my twin. Surging to my little hooves with a great effort, I stomp over to my brother, lean down, and whisper again - right in his blue ear.
"REMMY!!!"
That does the trick.
Leaping back, I grin unapologetically at whatever reaction my twin chooses to have - it doesn't really matter, because we'll be distracted by something new and exciting in about two minutes, anyway. Already as we stand in the dimly lit forest I begin to buzz with excitement, literally lifting a foot of the ground as my body wiggles and jiggles like a thing possessed. Happily possessed, but still possessed nonetheless.
"I want to find someone or something or someone," I stage-whisper, my wide, daddy-brown eyes glimmering from where they are set into my equally brown face. I call them daddy-brown because daddy says I have his eyes, even though I can't see them - but I trust my daddy, even if he gets mad at me and Remmy for being "shit-disturbing hellions" as he puts it. It's not our faults we like to run and play!! Besides, daddy always forgives us anyway, and puts us to bed at night, and sometimes even tells us a story when I ask and ask and ask and ask.
"It's morning, see!!" My shapely Arabian head tosses insistently to the meager amount of pale green light streaming anxiously from the blackness beyond the horizon, as though the sun were on fire just there. But, knowing my twin, he won't need much convincing - he is as pliable as daddy, and far more willing to get up to no good than all the mean adults who live in this place. "We are allowed to be up," I finish, winking broadly to indicate the evident falsehood in that statement; and then, tumbling back to earth, I explode into a cacophony of giggles.
these are the last blues we're ever gonna have, let's see how deep we get the glow of the cities below lead us back to the places that we never should have left
Our habit of waking up just as the first rays of sunlight can be seen on the horizon is probably the reason why Dad doesn’t sleep near us anymore, but I don’t mind.
“Remmy!” my twin whisper-screeches, and I pretend to ignore her, not moving. It’s so early, and we had been up so late last night; I briefly wonder if Missy had even slept at all, or if she had just sat there all night until the sun rose, ready to start the next day. A loud snort from my sister startles the nearby birds but I still refuse to move, not wanting to move from my warm nest in the Loessian grass. I hear her get up and move my way, but I still jump about a foot when her voice suddenly echoes in my ear, my yellow eyes snapping open to glare at her.
Without warning I huff flames in her direction – never at her – and scramble to my own hooves as Missy buzzes with excitement, literally lifting off of the ground she’s so excited. I’ll probably always be jealous that she can fly and I can’t, but I press down that jealousy as I sent a wave of flames over my body, burning away any traces of the grass that had clung to my coat. “So, Missy,” I say, my voice still heavy with sleep. “Who should we bother today? I heard that there’s a new king already; we should go bug him!”
As I talk, the veil of tiredness begins to lift and I shift eagerly from hoof to hoof, a goofy grin settling on my lips. Dad may call us hellions – and he’s not wrong – but it’s usually Missy that comes up with the plans and I just follow along with her. She was born first, you see, and she got so much of Mom’s personality that I know it’s better to just go with whatever she wants to do.
She giggles as she indicates the barest of sunlight peeking over the horizon, and I can’t help but collapse into a fit of giggles as well as she falls back to the earth, and naturally we end up with our long, baby legs all tangled together. As our fits subside, I glance to my sister and grin broadly. “Daddy would be so mad if he knew we were awake right now.”
i'm yours 'til the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away
xyrem
( i'm struggling to exist with you and without you )
At long last, my little brother stands up - though not before sending a burst of red-hot flame my way. I toss my head with a snort at the impudence, though I know my brother would never intentionally hurt me; but still, there's a distinct jealousy in my girlish eyes as he renders the grass on his coat to ash with one wave of fire. I stick out my pink tongue at him to emphasize this unspoken point, but soon my sleepy partner in crime is ready to be up to no good, and I let go of my envy.
And boy, am I glad I do - because as my own sleep is shedding from me, Xyrem remembers about the new king - and I woop with joy, spontaneously flying into the air and doing a front flip, landing gracefully on my hind legs in a rear. With similar exuberance, Remmy shifts his weight from hoof to hoof, grinning like the little rapscallion he pretends not to be.
Collapsing into a tangly-legged bunch as we laugh at our own cunning in regard to the rising sun, my twin and I fall into the same pattern of laughter and breathing, the sound eerily in unison; what can I say? We are terribly close, my twin and I. Reaching over, my ashy brown nose brushes baby fluff out of Remmy's gorgeous yellow eyes, my skin trembling with excess adrenaline. As I retreat, he grins and mentions how mad daddy would be if he found out that we are up; my own grin grows quickly in response.
"Daddy loves us," I affirm good-naturedly, using my most angelic baby-girl voice, complete with a flutter of my long eyelashes. "He could never be maaaad." Of course, the glint in my brown eyes reveal the farse in that statement, and the succeeding giggle only works to set in stone how much of a lie that is. Well, a lie in one way, but not in another; although we push daddy's buttons to no ends, we never go to sleep at night questioning his love for us. Smiling a little absent-mindedly, I day dream briefly about the stallion Oxytocin, wondering if one day I will make history like he did.
Rousing with a jolt (don't tell Remmy but I'd been falling asleep again!!), I lift my petite head off of where it'd been resting on my brother's shoulder. "Come on!" I yell, disentangling myself and then shooting to my hooves. "Let's go find king Catpee or whatever his name is!"
